See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy DAN HODGES, DAILY MAIL COLUMNIST Published: 16:49 BST, 29 June 2026 | Updated: 17:03 BST, 29 June 2026
Andy Burnham's first major speech since Keir Starmer announced his resignation was light on detail and heavy on pathos. But make no mistake, when he said he intends to rip up the Westminster establishment by its roots and re-bed it in the North of England, he was being deadly serious.Burnham's predecessors have paid lip service to the concept of transporting power out of Whitehall and carting it up the M1. Rishi Sunak made a great play of his plan to transfer 700 civil servants to a new 'Treasury of the North' in Darlington. But the move was ultimately seen as empty, and politically performative.The prime minister-elect's announcement that he intends 'the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen' is not simply more of the same old rhetoric, but lies at the heart of what he sees as his national mission. As one ally told me: 'This isn't just part of a political strategy. It's who Andy Burnham is. He isn't just from the North, he's of the North. It made him.'This will be evidenced in two key promises Mr Burnham has already made. The first is that he will immediately begin to transfer the heart of governance out of Downing Street and reconstruct it in a 'No10 of the North'.According to his aides, this will not simply be an annexe to the existing No10, but the primary centre of his new government. 'Obviously there's going to need to be flexibility with the weekly diary,' one told me. 'Especially around issues like foreign summits and parliamentary votes. But he's going to commit to spending at least a day a week in the "No10 of the North", and in reality it will probably be a lot more. This will be the primary nerve centre for his whole operation.'The second key decision relates to Burnham's living arrangements. After discussions with his family, he has decided he will keep his current home in Golborne, just outside Wigan, as his primary residence. 'He will not be using No10 as his main home,' a friend revealed. 'He'll be staying in Golborne. He said if he was elected Prime Minister, he wouldn't forget where he was from, and he meant it.' Andy Burnham has has decided he will keep his current home in Golborne, just outside Wigan, as his primary residence if he becomes prime ministerSome of the initial foundations for this dramatic regional power shift have already been laid out. Burnham's most senior adviser, Kevin Lee, has remained in Manchester to help oversee the campaign to elect his replacement as Mayor. But he has already begun scoping out locations for the new Prime Ministerial hub and started to sound out potential senior staffers.At the heart of this radical devolution strategy is a burning desire to avoid the errors of Keir Starmer's fateful first few months in office. As one Ministerial ally of Mr Burnham's explained to me: 'The fatal mistake Keir made was to get elected on a mandate of change, then spend the next three months looking like he was carrying on business as usual. That's not what the people of Makerfield voted for, and it's not what the rest of the country wants, either.'But not all of Burnham's parliamentary colleagues are happy with the King of the North's unashamed adoption of 'Manchesterism' as his governing credo. As one MP told me: 'This transfer of power stuff is great if you're in the North. But what if you're sitting on a Labour majority of a couple of thousand in Southend or Kent? What's the offer there?'Part of the problem facing Burnham is the toxic nature of his inheritance from his predecessor. Faced with the demolition of Labour's Red Wall under assault from Nigel Farage, and the potential collapse of his metropolitan bastions in the face of Zack Polanski's Greens, Burnham has no option but to try and shore up one of his party's collapsing flanks. And he has chosen to dig in along the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal.Which is a dramatically different strategy from that employed by Labour's election winners of the past. As another Minister pointed out: 'The danger with Andy's strategy is that even if it's successful, it basically takes us back to where we were under Neil [Kinnock] in 1992. Yes, our northern heartlands are safe again. But where does that leave us in the South, the South West, East Anglia or the Midlands?'That is indeed the risk. There's no doubt the King of the North is genuinely committed to a radical and lasting recalibration of the power imbalance between Westminster and the regions. But as devotees of Game of Thrones know, in the end, the original King of the North never got to sit on the Iron Throne.Because he realised that while he was popular with his own people, he couldn't unite a fractured kingdom. Andy Burnham will need to work hard to avoid a similar fate.
